Brett O’Brien’s The Weapons We’re Born With, the first book in the Currents of War series, is an ambitious epic fantasy about people discovering that the identities assigned to them don’t have to determine the lives they lead. The story unfolds across a world being consumed by imperial conquest, magical warfare, political ambition, and rapid technological change. Its many viewpoint characters initially seem to occupy separate stories: Shara is a street child whose forbidden magical ability forces her into hiding, Marysa is a Resistance fighter struggling with leadership and grief, Callum is an artificer trapped inside the imperial war machine, and EM4022 is a manufactured soldier beginning to develop a conscience. Their paths gradually converge around a conflict involving the Current, an authoritarian order of Nightshades, ancient powers, experimental weapons, and a dragon whose captivity has consequences for the entire world.

The novel’s greatest strength is its cast. O’Brien gives each major character a personal struggle that reflects the book’s larger questions about freedom and responsibility. Shara wants safety and belonging, but her natural connection to the Current makes an ordinary life impossible. Callum has spent years helping the Empire function, and his story asks what resistance looks like when someone realizes that their talent has been serving a cruel system. Marysa is physically formidable, yet her most meaningful battles involve trust, loss, and the pressure of leading others. EM4022’s transformation is especially compelling. Its early chapters use cold designations and tactical calculations, but small acts of compassion gradually break through its conditioning. Watching EM4022 become Ronin turns the familiar artificial-being-seeks-humanity storyline into one of the book’s most emotionally satisfying arcs.

The world is large, colorful, and full of ideas. Different nations, faiths, magical traditions, military ranks, spirits, machines, and political factions give the setting a sense of history beyond the immediate plot. The Current works particularly well because it’s both a source of power and a reflection of character. People draw from it differently, and their abilities often reveal how they understand themselves. O’Brien also combines fantasy and technology with confidence. Swords, spirits, airships, artificial soldiers, fission weapons, and industrial machinery all belong to the same world without feeling randomly assembled. The final sequence beneath Mount Pyra brings these elements together in a chaotic, cinematic climax involving collapsing tunnels, divided loyalties, desperate sacrifices, and the release of a dragon. The action is easy to picture, but it remains grounded in the characters’ choices.

Readers of Brandon Sanderson, particularly those who enjoyed Mistborn, will recognize some appealing similarities. Both stories center on resistance to an oppressive empire, feature carefully structured supernatural powers, and follow characters from very different social positions as they become part of a larger rebellion. O’Brien also shares Sanderson’s fondness for intersecting plots and explosive finales. His approach, though, feels more openly influenced by modern ensemble storytelling. The viewpoint shifts are frequent, and the book sometimes reads like a season of prestige fantasy television, cutting between soldiers, rebels, rulers, scientists, and fugitives as a crisis builds. That scale gives the story energy, though the number of characters and unfamiliar terms can make the early chapters demanding. Once the connections become clearer, the broad structure starts to feel purposeful.

The Weapons We’re Born With is ultimately a story about choosing what to do with power, whether that power comes from magic, knowledge, authority, physical strength, or the ability to create life. Its title becomes more meaningful as the characters confront the difference between what they were made for and what they decide to become. The ending resolves the Mount Pyra conflict while leaving the war, the dragon, and several personal reckonings in motion, so it works as both a climax and a clear beginning to a larger saga. O’Brien has built a crowded but engaging world populated by people worth following, and the novel’s strongest moments come when spectacle gives way to compassion, grief, or quiet defiance. It’s a bold opening volume with the momentum and emotional foundation to support a much bigger story.

Pages: 566 | ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0H8Y8H18M